


now we don't have time to unpack all of that

by makurophage



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Also Slightly Horny, Blood, Don't Do Any Of This Actually, Drugs, M/M, Psychological Horror, Violence, actually not too graphic but the warning is there so y'all take care, please don't do drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-25 23:40:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18712042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makurophage/pseuds/makurophage
Summary: “Tetsu,” Bokuto says in an exhale, shifting onto his knees and sending a small splash of water over the edge and onto the floor. “Tetsurou. You know, you’re good at pretending. I like that in a man.”“Yeah? I’ll show youpretending,” Tetsurou snipes.





	now we don't have time to unpack all of that

**Author's Note:**

> WHAT IF WE KISSED 😳😳😳 RIGHT BEFORE _[redacted]_ 😳😳😳 (AND WE ARE BOTH BOYS)
> 
> read tags please !!! it gets pretty serious !!!  
> ALSO psst, drowning/suffocation imagery appears so if you're squeamish with that, tread carefully near the mid-point !!!  
> title from my main man mulaney

**** "Bo," Kuroo whispers, holding his left hand so, so delicately. "Koutarou, what have you done to yourself?"

  


On most days, Bokuto's hands are so big that they cleave the universe in half. His wholeness is the quivering mass of something newly reborn — tsunamic, great and blue. On most days, Bokuto's hands are so big that they go around Tetsurou twice.

  


In the end, Bokuto still bleeds like a budding flower. Tetsurou conjures, for a second, the thought that the candy-red warmth is mesmerizing, then feels immediately sick. But he cannot afford to be sick, not with Bokuto still smiling and  _ smiling  _ and looking like the brightest thing in the solar system. Tetsurou feels  _ sick. _

  


"What do you mean, Tetsu?" Bokuto says, corners of his lips turning downward belatedly like a drawbridge.

  


Tetsurou squeezes his palm absently just to watch more red gush out. "Look at yourself."

  


"It's just a little bleeding," Bokuto shrugs, pulling his hand away gently. Tetsurou lets go when it disappears behind his back. The blood slides off of his white bedsheets, dripping in between the floor's wooden paneling and leaving ghosts of smoke in its wake.

  


"Did you do this?" Tetsurou demands. He reaches for Bokuto's arm again but the weight of them topples everything backward, trapping the trickle of blood behind his back. "Please talk to me, babe. Please. You can tell me anything. Tell me who did this." Tetsurou stares into Bokuto's eyes until he diverts them, then adds, mechanically, "We need to get you bandaged up."

  


Bokuto attempts to push him off, but Tetsurou is nearly as heavy as he is. "It'll close up on its own," he insists halfheartedly.

  


Tetsurou sees the catastrophic waves swimming in the reflection of his golden eyes. Bokuto's nervous. Why is he nervous? It's not like Tetsurou is going to mess up and hurt him.

  


"You need to be bandaged," he repeats, firmer this time.

  


Bokuto stills, but doesn't say anything.

  


"Bo?"

  


"Then why won't you let me up?" he snaps. "I'll bleed out at this rate."

  


"Bleed out?" Tetsurou says, and the words taste disgustingly smooth in his mouth, so he says it again. "Bleed out. You won't bleed out."

  


"Maybe I should."

  


"What?" Kuroo says, newly alarmed. "No, I won't let you. Come on, get up, shit. Fuck."

  


Bokuto shoulders him out of the way as soon as he can stand again. "You know, you're a really good fucking actor, Kuroo."  _ Kuroo.  _ He won't look Tetsurou in the eyes.

  


Tetsurou tenses up instinctively but then scoffs, trailing after him into the bathroom.  _ "I'm  _ a good actor? And what about you?"

  


The bathtub begins to fill with gurgling water when Bokuto turns its faucets with his good hand.  He crosses his arms and stands in front of it, silent. Tetsurou waits next to him, flinching minutely when the occasional droplet bounces onto his bare legs.

  


Bokuto sighs after a long minute, dragging a palm down his face. "Sorry, Tetsu."

  


He relaxes at the softer tone. "What for, babe?"

  


They share a furtive glance, and then Bokuto's retracting inward again, bending down to touch the bathwater. "Never mind," he mutters.

  


Tetsurou catches sight of the underside of Bokuto's left arm when he peels it off of his blue shirt, both the material and his skin stained with a thick stripe of blood. His shirt sticks to his side wetly. Most of the urgent bleeding has tapered off at the tips of his fingers; it no longer pools in the crevices of his palm. It seems that, somehow, Bokuto had been right about the wound closing by itself.

  


“Why don’t you shower?” Tetsurou asks, eyes glued to Bokuto’s back muscles, which ripple like the ocean as he gets up to take off his shirt. “You’ll dirty the bath if you go in like that.”

  


Tetsurou goes to touch the coral-reef cut of his shoulder blades as soon as they’re exposed, but with a sudden movement Bokuto tosses his crumpled shirt to the counter and Tetsurou’s hand recoils. Bokuto slaps a hand over his shoulder, rolls it back a couple of times to dispel the tension. 

  


“Look again,” he says, grinning over his shoulder.

  


Tetsurou looks again. The blood is gone.

  


“Magic trick?” Tetsurou moves forward again after getting over his shock, running his hands down Bokuto’s muscled arm. Dry and completely unblemished. He raises Bokuto’s wrist to his mouth, blue-green-veined, presses kisses in a line down to the pads of his fingers. He smiles fondly against the calloused skin. “How’d you do that?”

  


Bokuto only smiles wider, almost too wide, predator-like. He pulls Tetsurou to his full height to hold him by the jaw and Tetsurou shivers against the touch, swallowing with difficulty when Bokuto thumbs a line over his cheekbone. He feels dizzy looking into Bokuto’s golden-syrup eyes, finds himself forgetting how to breathe as Bokuto moves their heads closer together.

  


“Tetsurou,” Bokuto murmurs, and it’s almost laughable how quickly Tetsurou loses every single train of thought.

  


Bokuto presses his mouth onto Tetsurou’s simply and firmly, and then leans back to watch his eyes open with a flutter. He feels too-warm, cheeks probably dusted an awful pink, and dizzier still. Bokuto’s fingers knot into his hair gently, and he presses forward again, more forcefully this time. A lick between his lips compels Tetsurou to let out an incriminating noise and plant his hands on Bokuto’s bare sides instead, running them upward and holding on for balance as he melts helplessly against him. 

  


It takes two blinks for Bokuto to crowd him into the counter, not stopping until Tetsurou’s bent so far backward he’s truly afraid his spine might give out, but Bokuto’s grip moves to the backside of his bedhead and holds up the full weight of him like it’s easy. He moans against him in desperation, becoming increasingly lightheaded; Bokuto kisses him through it and through it until suddenly there’s a tipping point —

  


— until suddenly there’s a series of sharp fucking stabbing at his head,  _ one-two-three — _

  


— and Tetsurou pushes Bokuto off of him urgently and stumbles to kneel in front of the toilet, clawing at his throat —

  


“Tetsu, what — are you okay? Shit! Tetsurou!”

  


Tetsurou can’t answer. He’s too busy seeing doubles of the toilet bowl as he hoists himself over it with shaking arms, head lolling downward like a bowling ball. And he  _ heaves. _

  


“Tetsu —” A strong arm snakes under his folded chest, forces him a little more upright, but the pressure causes him to throw up another fluid mass of —

  


He coughs weakly, opens his watering eyes. The water has turned a nauseous blood-red. Hearing Bokuto’s gasp makes Tetsurou pitch forward one last time, dry-heaving, fists clenching the sides of the toilet bowl so hard his knuckles turn white. His shoulders rise and fall with his quick panting as his chest convulses a few more times, and then just as quickly as the disorientation had come, he’s completely purged of it.

  


As soon as control of his breathing comes back to him in a jerk, Tetsurou’s aware of the hand carding through his hair, soothing. He swallows calmly, wipes the blood dribbling past his lips with a thumb, and goes to the sink to wash out his mouth without a word.

  


“Y’alright now?” Bokuto says carefully.

  


Tetsurou inhales, catches golden eyes in the mirror. They’re crinkled with consternation. He puts on a smile and straightens up, smoothing back his hair. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

  


The toilet bowl water is still red when they go back to inspect it. 

  


Bokuto presses his lips into a line, but makes no move to comfort him, as if he’s — cautious. Nervous, again, to touch him. “Tetsu…”

  


“So that’s where all the blood went,” Tetsurou says, mostly to himself, and it all makes sense in some tiny alcove of his brain. He tips the lid forward, letting it smack loudly against the toilet, and then flushes. They wait until the thing finishes gurgling before moving again.

  


“Let’s get in the bath,” Bokuto suggests, pulling down his sweatpants and boxers to follow. “It’s probably the perfect temperature by now.”

  


Tetsurou piles his clothes in a scrambled heap in one corner of the counter. He scrutinizes his face once more in the mirror, tilting his head this way and that in order to see inside of his mouth, under his tongue. No stained-red, no pieces of food lurking between his teeth, no sores. Relief comes sharply when he concludes that everything is in the ordinary, and he turns back around to examine Bokuto from this distance, only to find that he’s already staring back.

  


He’s crouched into a ball on one end of the bathtub, knees drawn up to just under his nose, and a couple of locks of his silver-black hair drape over his cheeks like silk and disappear behind his ear. When he blinks, his headlight eyes are shinier than ever. Tetsurou flushes under the attention, shuffling forward on the bathmat self-consciously. He grips the edge of the marble while getting in; he wouldn’t want to slip and hit his head on something — they’re both of a larger-than-average height and build, after all, the poor bathtub can barely take them folded against each other.

  


The warmth of the bath is indescribably comforting, undulations lapping at the bottom of his chin. Tetsurou nearly nods off before Bokuto begins moving again, skin squeaking against the bathtub walls as he tries to change his posture. He watches Bokuto’s efforts passively, amused but too tired to smile.

  


“Tetsu,” Bokuto says in an exhale, shifting onto his knees and sending a small splash of water over the edge and onto the floor. “Tetsurou. You know, you’re good at pretending. I like that in a man.”

  


“Yeah? I’ll show you  _ pretending,”  _ Tetsurou snipes lightheartedly.

  


He grins crookedly at Tetsurou, seemingly on the verge of laughter, moving slowly forward until he can plant his hands on Tetsurou’s shoulders. And Tetsurou stretches his legs out of their folded position, letting Bokuto take up his field of vision: tousled hair with bathwater gathering at its ends, rivulets running down his neck and sitting at the sill of his collarbones, sharp and inviting, and further down, drops of water clinging to the dips and ridges of his defined chest. The clean lines of Bokuto’s Adonis belt start just above water-level with how he’s kneeling between Tetsurou’s legs, and Tetsurou can’t help but bring his hands upward to touch him, anywhere, everywhere.

  


“You’re so sexy,” he murmurs lazily. 

  


Bokuto looms further over him, bending downward to kiss him again. His hands slide up Tetsurou’s chest underwater, pressing upward roughly until he reaches his nipples, and Tetsurou jerks at the contact, breath coming quicker now.

  


“Do you know, Kuroo,” Bokuto whispers into his ear, “how dangerous you are.”

  


“No,” Tetsurou says, even as the blurry outline of comprehension begins to shift in the back of his mind. His body is awake now, for sure, but there’s something else, something more. “Please… I… educate me?”

  


“Mm, lemme see those teeth,” Bokuto says. He presses a thumb into the pinhole-corner of his mouth, and Tetsurou lets him push past his lips and trace the points of his teeth pliantly. “Yes… just as sharp as I remembered.”

  


“Koutarou? What do you mean?” Tetsurou says, trying to sit up properly against the wall of the bathtub, but Bokuto gently holds him to his spot with his free hand.

  


“This mouth of yours has caused me a lot of grief,” Bokuto sighs, kissing him chastely. “Who do you think gave me that hole in my palm?”

  


“What?” Tetsurou says, very, very quietly. “Bo, I — I didn’t do that to you.”

  


“Yeah, and I’m not hard as a rock,” Bokuto quips. WIth a smooth movement he has Tetsurou’s wrists pinned above his head and against the wall, and suddenly the too-bright smile on his face looks like it doesn’t belong to him.

  


Tetsurou’s tone becomes severe, pushing upward with all his might. “Let me up, Bokuto,” he says, trying not to sound too frantic. “Let’s get dressed and then talk about it, alright?”

  


“What’s there to talk about?” Bokuto says. “I think it’s pretty clear what’s going on here. For a good half hour you left me completely alone, bleeding, in my room. I was  _ scared,  _ Kuroo. I couldn’t even hold onto my  _ phone  _ I was shaking so hard.”

  


“Stop,” Tetsurou says, tears breaking past his eyelids. “please stop saying I did that to you. I would never, Koutarou. I love you too much to hurt you. And I love you too much to leave you alone when you need me.”

  


“You were a completely different person when you came back,” Bokuto continues, gripping his wrists tighter. “I could hardly stand to look at you but I was bleeding too much to reject your help.”

  


Tetsurou breaks. He yanks at his arms and bucks wildly, snapping at Bokuto’s hand when it gets too close to his mouth, and earns a cruel slap to the face for his efforts. 

  


“That hurt,” Tetsurou half-gasps, tilting his head weakly to press the site of contact against the surface of the rapidly-cooling bathwater. It doesn’t help.

  


Bokuto stays silent, uprights Tetsurou’s head gently and gives him another kiss. The thought of biting him again only crosses Tetsurou’s mind for a fleeting moment, but then Bokuto’s a frustrating distance away again in the blink of an eye.

  


“Please… please fucking stop,” Tetsurou hisses, struggling harder against Bokuto’s weight, but he’s practically being sat on top of. His legs only fold enough to splash more water out of the tub, not dig into the flesh of Bokuto’s back like he so wishes they could.

  


“You once called me your ocean, Kuroo,” Bokuto surmises. “Your tsunami.”

  


_ Every tsunami needs a floodgate to dwarf,  _ he doesn’t say.  _ You’re my floodgate,  _ he doesn’t say.

  


“Koutarou…“ Tetsurou begins, searching his face for any sign of relent. “What’s wrong with you? You’re hurting me. I’m sure we can talk this out, okay? I’m really sorry I… I bit you. Please, just… let’s get out, alright? Let me make it up to you, how about it?”

  


“No,  _ I’m _ sorry, Kuroo,” Bokuto shakes his head solemnly. “This is far, far from the first time. You’re a danger to me. You’re a danger to everyone.”

  


“I’m not! I promise, I’m not!”

  


“It’ll be easier for both of us if you drop the act, Kuroo.”

  


“Easier for you to what?” 

  


Tetsurou’s breath quickens to near-hyperventilation as Bokuto’s free hand slides up between his clavicles and keeps going, up until his fingers are wrapped loosely around his neck, and that is when Tetsurou figures out  _ exactly what is going to happen to him. _

  


“Please,” he whispers, throat tight with cold, cold fear, “Koutarou, you don’t want to do this.  _ Please.” _

  


“You’re right,” Bokuto says, but he applies more pressure instead of less, and Tetsurou tenses up so fast he almost submerges further underwater. Bokuto’s golden-dish eyes blur into warping shapes as Tetsurou’s vision begins to fill with tears earnestly. “I don’t want to. I  _ need  _ to.”

  


“Please stop,” he repeats in a wheeze, because he can think of nothing else to say. “Please, Koutarou. Please. Please, I’m fucking begging you. I’ll do anything, please let me go.”

  


“Yeah, I’m sure that’s what Akaashi was saying before you took off his leg,” Bokuto hisses, starting to force Tetsurou’s entire body down the side of the tub by the clamp of his hand around his neck.

  


Tetsurou is going to  _ drown _ . Tetsurou is going to be suffocated by his boyfriend in a bathtub of water in their own home, and he —

  


He’s in a bathtub. Bathtubs have plugs.

  


In a surge of desperation, Tetsurou holds his breath and lets himself be pushed further down, in order to extend his legs as far to the other side as they’ll go, feet frantically fighting against the immobility that Bokuto’s weight impairs them with and jutting against the walls of the tub, the floor, and finally something that feels round, metal —

  


“Don’t get clever now, Kuroo,” Bokuto says, jerking his head up by the neck and slamming him against the marble. The words reach him gurgled underwater, and it sounds like a fucking death sentence, and Tetsurou’s running out of breath, he’s lost the plug, he’s  _ exhaling too fucking fast, he’s gonna die, he _ —

  


Breathes in a burning lungful of water, and —

   


   


   


   


   


   


   


   


* * *

   


   


   


   


   


   


   


   


   


Keiji finds him in the kitchen, gathering all the wine bottles he can find and lining them up in neat rows inside a cardboard box. Keiji can tell he’s shaking because of the frequent  _ clink-clink-clink _ ing, and he sets down his motorbike helmet onto the table to take the next pair of bottles from his hands quickly in fear of having them drop to the ground and shatter.

  


They work quickly and quietly together, emptying the fridge of beer cans as well, and soon enough the cardboard box is nearly overflowing.

  


And then Kuroo pulls a chair out, sits down, and begins to cry.

  


“Hey, Kuroo-san…” Keiji says softly, taking a seat across from him. He touches Kuroo’s hair tentatively, and the man leans forward into his touch. “That bad?”

  


Kuroo just sobs harder. “It… it felt too real,” he manages between hiccups.

  


Keiji pulls him into his chest, hugging his warm back and petting his hair. “It’s gonna be alright, Kuroo-san, don’t worry. You’re gonna be okay. I’m here for you.”

  


“Koutarou…” Kuroo whispers.

  


“You wanna talk to Bokuto-san?” Keiji says, which is met by a furious shake of the head. He glances toward the bathroom, where the sound of running water can be heard. “He’s washing out the wine stains from his shirt right now. Eventually we’re gonna have a talk with him, okay? But not now.”

  


“Not now,” he agrees quickly.

  


The running water blends into the silence as Keiji just holds him for a while, leaning down to press his cheeks to Kuroo’s mess of hair. Then, he remembers: “Kuroo-san… did you get rid of the… your…”

  


“Flushed the rest of it down the toilet,” Kuroo whispers into his hands. “Never want to see any of that shit again.”

  


“Good boy,” Keiji commends, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. He scoots closer, hugging around Kuroo’s middle. After a few seconds Kuroo reciprocates and, as silence passes over them like a blanket, he eventually falls asleep on Keiji’s shoulder.

  


Bokuto’s footsteps round the corner, and as Keiji looks up, he appears in the kitchen doorway. There are dark smudges under his eyes, his hair is puffy and staticy, red lines still stark against his cheek from the non-bed surface he must have slept on. He… has probably never looked this bad after a night of pandemic drinking, among other unnameable actions, and he has certainly, definitely never looked this heartbroken.

  


Still he smiles at the sight of Kuroo, calm in his sleep. Keiji watches his eyes linger on his boyfriend before meeting Keiji’s own gaze, and he attempts and fails a few times to open his mouth and speak.

  


Finally he says, and it comes out quiet and rough, “You came here on your motorcycle, ‘Kaashi?”

  


Keiji catches the flick of his eyes downward, to his exposed prosthetic leg, shiny-titanium in the dim kitchen light. “It was the fastest way to get through traffic,” he says, waving him off. “Don’t worry about me. I’m not the type to get hung up on past auto-accidents.”

  


“I’ll still worry.” Bokuto clicks his tongue, leaning against the doorframe.

  


“And… the bathtub?” Keiji asks, softly.

  


“Completely dry.”

  


“No blood anywhere? Vomit?”

  


“None.”

  


“I see.”

  


“I —” Bokuto runs a hand through his hair, guilty. “I remember… sometime during the… the trip, I tried to call you but my hands were shaking too hard, and I forgot I had your number saved.”

  


“It’s alright, Bokuto-san. It was just a really bad trip, nothing more. And it’ll never happen again. Kuroo-san got rid of the rest of your stickers.” Keiji looks down at Kuroo’s shoulders, rising and falling gently. “I’m sure you both had an awful scare.”

  


“I just… there’s one thing,” Bokuto says, and Keiji only just realizes he’s been hiding his left hand behind his back this entire time. He reveals it now, bandaged thoroughly from the tip of his fingers to the bottom of his wrist. “I woke up this morning thinking there was a hole in my hand and I was bleeding, so I wrapped it up. It… it was bleeding quite a lot.”

  


Keiji reaches out to him, beckons him closer so he can get a better look. Bokuto obliges, approaching cautiously. “But there’s no blood coming through… at all,” he observes. “Unwrap it?”

  


Bokuto unwraps the gauze slowly. It is soon clear that his skin is devoid of any blemishes, stains or otherwise, much less holes in his hand. Keiji frowns. He’s perfectly fine. But Bokuto wouldn’t lie, or make things up, so instead something shifts uncomfortably in his stomach.

  


“Magic?” he murmurs, just to see Bokuto smile a little bit. But the smile vanishes all too fast, and Bokuto gets a sudden, wild look in his eyes, face paling.

  


“‘Kaashi!” he hisses. “Oh my god, ‘Kaashi, look. Oh my god.”

  


Bokuto pinches the back of Keiji’s shirt collar where Kuroo’s mouth had been resting, yanks and twists it to the front so that Keiji can see what’s on it: 

  


A smear of blood, vermillion. Fresh.

  


“Oh my god,” he repeats, attempting to upright Kuroo back onto his own chair.

  


Bokuto whisks over to the kitchen counter and rips several pieces of paper towel from its holder, shoving it into Keiji’s hands shakily. Keiji presses them under Kuroo’s dribbling mouth, his chin, all the while shaking his shoulder rigorously. “Oh god, Kuroo-san, wake up. You’re bleeding.”

  


“God,” Bokuto’s backing up into the corner, shaking his head. “What the fuck. What the fuck.”

  


“Alright,” Keiji says, controlling his breathing, “I’m going to need you two to separate. Bokuto-san, please wait outside the building. I’m going to call Kenma to come and get you. You’ll stay at our apartment for now.”

  


Bokuto leaves immediately, slamming the door behind him so hard that the wine bottles in the cardboard box rattle against each other violently.

  


Keiji dials Kenma quickly and relays the message, applying pressure to Kuroo’s mouth with his other hand.

  


“Koutarou?” Kuroo’s blinking awake, becoming slowly cognizant. He flinches away from Keiji’s hand and beads of blood land on the kitchen tile from the sudden movement.

  


“No, it’s me, Akaashi. Please come with me, Kuroo-san. You need to lie down.”

  


“I… I’m going to be okay, right, angelface?”

  


“Yes, you are,” Keiji says urgently. “You’re alive, we’re all alive, but you’re bleeding right now. How do you feel? Does it hurt?”

  


“Nothing hurts.”

  


“Are you sure? Back of your throat, gums, tongue, anything? Let me see your mouth.”

  


Keiji reaches for his mouth but Kuroo jerks backward fast, standing up and knocking his chair over with clumsy limbs. He’s breathing hard. He’s breathing too hard.

  


“Okay,” Keiji says, retracting his trembling hand. “Okay, maybe I’ll get an ambulance. That’s it. We’ll get you an ambulance. I won’t touch you. I won’t come near you. Take a seat, alright?”

  


“No,” Kuroo murmurs. And then, “No, it’s alright,” shockingly clearly, and it seems as if an air of hyper-consciousness has settled on top of him. “I don’t need an ambulance, I’m going to be fine on my own. Sorry about… about all this.”

  


“Kuroo-san…”

  


He gets up, bracing a hand against the wall, picks up the chair he’d knocked over. He walks unhurriedly to the kitchen sink. He turns on the tap. He washes his mouth out, and he washes his tear-stains, his eyes. 

  


“Sorry,” he repeats. “I didn’t want to get you involved, angelface. I’ll get over myself. I’m sorry you had to send Bo away.”

  


“No, don’t —” Keiji starts, taken aback. “I… I’m glad you’re feeling better, Kuroo-san. Maybe you should take a long nap, then you’ll feel brand new.”

  


“Maybe you’re right. I’ll go and do that.” Kuroo doesn’t move from the sink, instead cupping his hands under the running stream and letting the water spill over. “And send Koutarou back soon. We don’t want to bother you and Kenma too long.”

  


“...You’re sure you’re going to be alright?” Keiji says, getting out of his seat uncertainly. “Want me to stay here while you sleep?”

  


“No, you can go home, angelface,” Kuroo says, still staring intently at the stream of water. “No, I think I’m going to be just fine.”

   


**Author's Note:**

> damn i think i scared myself a little with this one,,,, if you've read this far i applaud you so hard  
> kudos/comments get me thru my finals!! ily


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